Racks, loin chops and legs are the main cuts Canadians eat when it comes to lamb. Everything else seems to be turned into sausages or burgers, which are good enough, but there are other bits that do well, especially on the grill, such as the shoulder chop. It has the added advantage of being less expensive than the prime cuts, providing you find a butcher who will display them in the case or cut you a few to order. The reason for the shoulder chop’s relative obscurity likely has to do with its boniness. You have to work around the bones, and it certainly helps if your house rules allow you to pick up your chop for gnawing purposes. At any rate, where there is bone, there is flavour, so I think it’s worth the extra work.

Forsyth Farms is a family farm near Wiarton that supplies top-end butchers such as Olliffe (full disclosure: my local), Cumbrae’s and Sanagan’s meat locker in Toronto and Village Market in Markham. While lamb is often associated with spring, the animals born then are really ready to be eaten now, so you might say it’s in season. I like to pair fall lamb with roast potatoes flavoured with whatever rosemary is left in the garden and a ratatouille of autumn vegetables.

Chorizo generally refers to the family of pork sausages from Spain, Portugal and Latin America seasoned with smoked paprika, garlic, cumin and white wine, I like to use those flavours as a sort of hybrid rub-marinade on barbecued lamb. Cumin in particular seems to go with ovine cuts and the smokiness from the “pimenton” works nicely with comes off the grill.

CHORIZO-STYLE LAMB CHOPS
– 1 tbsp of “Pimenton” (Spanish smoked paprika — mild or hot)
– 1 tsp of cumin seeds
– 1 clove of garlic
– 2 tbsp olive oil
– 1 tbsp white or red wine vinegar
– dash of salt and pepper
– Shoulder lamb chops1. Pulverize the cumin seeds with a mortar and pestle. Mash in the garlic.2. Mix all the ingredients together into a loose paste.3. Brush the chops with the mixture on all sides, reserving any leftovers for application on the grill. Let the mixture set on the chops for about an hour in the fridge.4. Take out when barbecue is lit and all burners set to high, to warm up a bit for about 10 to 15 minutes while the grill gets as hot as possible.5. Sear the chops on the high heat grill for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, then reduce heat to medium-low, or select a place on the grill for the chops out of direct heat (this will depend on the configuration of gas jets in your barbecue), turning once or twice while basting with any leftover marinade mixture, for about 10 minutes of gentle cooking for medium rare chops of about an inch and a half thick. Time will vary depending on the thickness of the chops, and the degree of cooking desired. Let rest for at least 5 minutes.

If, like me, you have been swept up in the artisanal, natural, locavore food movements of the last decade, then you’ve stopped drinking much pop. There’s the matter of high-fructose corn syrup, which has been vilified by everyone from Michael Pollan to Michael Bloomberg, and blamed for its role in the North American obesity epidemic. Then, there’s the long list of weird chemical-sounding ingredients on the side of every soda can, not to mention that cola with a “secret formula.” Suffice it to say, those of us who increasingly care about transparency in the food system don’t drink as much pop as we used to. Until recently, that is.

Homemade sodas made from identifiably natural ingredients are one of this year’s hotter restaurant trends. After hiring mixologists and developing serious cocktail programs, it made sense that all those syrups and infusions could be used in homemade soft drinks, too. And there’s no reason why home cooks can’t get in on the fun, since the most common building block of an artisanal pop is syrup, which is really easy to make.

The recipe below is faithful to New York City food writer Andrea Lynn’s new book The Artisan Soda Workshop (Ulysses Press). It’s the most straightforward, no-fuss-no-muss formula in the book, but delivers a wonderfully refreshing and good-looking drink. Also, there’s no added sugar, since it relies on the natural sweetness of pineapple juice, so it’s perfect to share with kids — I made it with my nine-year-old son last weekend. And of course, there’s nothing stopping adults from adding a jigger of gin or vodka to the glass to transform the soda into a late summer cocktail.

1. Tear up basil leaves and add to pineapple juice in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and keep mixture on high heat until it has reduced by half — about 10 to 15 minutes.2. Strain out the basil leaves (or pick them out with a fork), and let the syrup cool in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. (The syrup will keep covered in the fridge for up to five days.)3. Add 30 mL of syrup to 250 mL of carbonated water, or adjust the ratio of syrup to water to your taste.

Makes at least eight drinks, from three 750 mL bottles of carbonated water.

In season now are scapes, the stems of garlic plants that can be used in almost any dish that uses chopped garlic. They are delicious sautéed in olive oil as a base for a pasta featuring whatever other fresh ingredients found at farmers’ markets or specialty grocers at this time: peas, fava beans, the first zucchini and so on. They also work nicely in marinades, especially with chicken or pork; the green flecks on the grilled meats add a summery aesthetic touch, too.

Apart from scapes and fresh local produce, this time of year also brings hot, humid weather, which makes me loath to turn on my oven, or even boil a pot of water. I try to cook as much as I can on my barbecue, and the starchy part of any meal is no exception. Garlic bread, baked in tinfoil, adapts perfectly to the grill, and the touch of chive flavour in scapes makes a tasty combination with melted butter. Because the bread is wrapped in tinfoil it can be cooked alongside pretty much anything else: meats, seafood or vegetables, as long as it’s on the grill with the lid closed for about 15 minutes. Adjust the amount of scapes according to your inclination for garlicky things (vampires should avoid).

1. In a small saucepan or pot, melt butter on low heat, add scapes (or garlic) and simmer for about five or 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.2. Cut the baguette lengthwise, as though you were making a giant sandwich, and lay pieces beside each other on a long piece of tinfoil.3. Add parsley to the butter, stir, then begin to “paint” the crumb of both the top and bottom of the bread until it’s fully saturated with the butter mixture. Carefully reassemble the baguette and wrap it in the tinfoil, using additional pieces if necessary to ensure the baguette is fully covered.4. Cook on a preheated barbecue grill with the lid closed at medium heat for 15 minutes, or in the oven at 350F for the same amount of time.5. Once cooked, let sit to cool for five minutes then unwrap, taking care not to burn fingers, and slice into widths to serve.

I have only recently begun to make vegetable soups using water instead of stock. The credit for this new phase in my soup-making evolution belongs to chef Brad Long from Café Belong at the Evergreen Brick Works. Long explained to me, at a lunch he hosted earlier in the spring, that it was the best way to get the clearest flavour from a vegetable when they’re in peak season, as asparagus is now.

As much as I love the complexity of stock-based soups in colder weather, warmer temperatures demand lighter flavours. It’s also nice to have a dish, or even a meal, that’s free of animal fat, especially after the feasts of barbecued ribs, sausages, burgers and all other essential summer grilling rituals. Culinary life, like all other kinds, is all about balance.

The recipe below is adapted from Arrigo Cipriani’s Harry’s Bar Cookbook (Bantam, 1991). I have substituted olive oil for butter and water for stock and omitted a quarter cup of heavy cream as well as a goodly amount of grated Parmesan cheese from the recipe to keep it vegan, simple and light. The original recipe also calls for the tips of the asparagus to be sautéed in butter and added later as a garnish. To counter the loss of these rich flavours, I’ve added more onions, leeks and celery, so that they become the base for a quick impromtu vegetable stock. I also season with salt after cooking, drizzle a bit more olive oil and cheat a bit with a grating or two of hard cheese at the table.

1. Remove and discard the woody ends of the asparagus by snapping them at the base. Then snap or chop the tender parts of the vegetable and set aside.2. Chop onions, leeks and celery into medium-sized bits, then sweat and soften for
10 minutes.3. Add potato and asparagus and continue to cook vegetables for an additional
5 minutes or so.4. Add water and bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.5. Finally, transfer the soup from the pot to a blender to puree, or use an immersion blender for the same effect.

When I was a kid we had a good-sized rhubarb patch in our backyard, and I used to challenge my friends to raw-rhubarb-stalk eating contests. I always won and I still love the sour, acidic lift. Just as the tomato is actually a fruit, rhubarb is actually a vegetable, but its flavour is tart fruitiness, especially when stewed into a compote with sugar.

This spring hasn’t been great for getting things out of the ground. Despite the mild winter in Ontario, the last eight weeks or so have been cold and dry, so we’re still waiting for the first farm greens, such as asparagus, to grace our plates. Rhubarb is “forced” in greenhouses starting in February and March, so that there’s local stuff about and it’s as good a taste of spring as any, especially over plain (real) vanilla ice cream, whose own season has come as the mercury finally begins to rise. Because it’s not a very sweet dessert, rhubarb compote goes especially well with dessert wines such as Sauternes or Niagara ice wine.

The recipe below is as simple as it gets, with just two ingredients. It’s a classic and the year’s first taste of rhubarb, I think, ought to be pure. But there’s no end of things one could add to a compote, from citrus peel to wines or even exotic spices, such as cardamom. Google your hearts away for variations.

An important note: Unless you are an Anna Olson-esque master baker and general expert on desserts, you will want to add water (even just a little bit) into the pan. Do not. Even though it is anathema to everything cook-like to add an ingredient to a hot pan without any lubrication, the water in the rhubarb will come out quickly enough that the vegetable (or fruit or whatever it is) will not burn, nor will the sugar caramelize.

1. Rinse and chop the rhubarb, discarding tough ends and leafy tops.2. Add to a pot; stir in the sugar over medium heat and cover. After 5 minutes, turn the stove to low and stew for an additional 10 minutes, checking every minute or so to stir. Taste and add sugar as you like.3. Continue to cook to the point of desired texture — the more you cook the more the rhubarb will break down into a sauce.4. Serve over ice cream, with a sprig or two of fresh mint for decoration and fun.

I was afraid to make pulled pork until I slow roasted a pork shoulder a few weeks ago and happily discovered it’s about the easiest way to cook there is. I couldn’t believe it took me so long to get with the low-and-slow roasting program. Riffing off an old Jamie Oliver “overnight slow roasted pork” recipe from Cook With Jamie (2006), cooking a five-pound shoulder roast was simply a matter of, at 9 a.m., giving it a 30-minute sizzle in the oven at 500F and then letting it cook ever so slowly at 250F until about 8:30 p.m., just in time for my dinner party. What was served was the most tender and flavourful pork, effortlessly pulled apart with a pair of forks — easily enough for 10 of us with leftovers.

The trick to a successful pork shoulder roast is the cut. My butcher, Sam Gundy, sold me a “capicola,” the much more appealing Italian name for “pork butt,” its English equivalent. He explained to me that it’s a single muscle (in this case, de-boned and tied) well marbled in fat and collagen. It’s the collagen in muscle that breaks down into a velvety and moist tenderness over hours of cooking.

My treatment of the shoulder roast was simple: just salt and pepper because I wanted to savour the flavour of the pork. But the fatty meat calls for the zing of an acidic sauce. Barbecue sauce would do nicely, but I am a big fan of salsa verde or green sauce, which can be improvised with any combination of green herbs, olive oil, garlic, a dash of vinegar and extras such as anchovy, dijon mustard and capers. Right now, the first wild foods are available in Ontario: wild leeks (or ramps). The wild leek makes an excellent base for a simple condiment because it’s constituted by a white oniony bit, resembling a leek, and lily-like green leaves that exude garlicky flavour. Dressed simply in olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice, they bring the taste of the forest to the plate.

1. Preheat oven to 500F.2. Rub olive oil on roast; season well with salt and pepper.3. Place roast in a pan and cook at 500F for 30 minutes. Lower temperature to 250F and cook 8 to 12 hours.4. Remove 30 minutes prior to serving, let cool for a few minutes, then pull meat apart with a pair of forks.5. Clean and remove root bottoms from the wild leeks. Chop whole leeks as finely as possible, making a chiffonade from the leaves.6. Place in a small serving bowl with a dash of salt. Add just enough olive oil to cover and make a loose sauce, then add a squeeze of lemon juice. Let sit for 30 minutes so the oil absorbs the leeks’ flavour.

When Linda Freeman’s father brought back some garlic from her family’s ancestral village in the Ukraine, she thought it would be fun to try to grow it on her farm outside of Meaford. It thrived in their high mineral Niagara Escarpment soil and her husband, David, started giving it to his customers on his rounds as an arborist. Demand grew and grew until the Freemans decided to grow it commercially. The only trouble was, as soon as they harvested their all-natural, certified organic crop, the Toronto markets would be flooded with cheap imported garlic from China or Argentina. To survive and bring some stability to their business, the Freemans decided to freeze-dry. Unfortunately, when you use a freeze dryer to process super pungent garlic, it can’t be used for anything else, like fruit, until it’s been thoroughly cleaned out. More than a decade, and more than $1-million of investment later, the Freemans run one of Canada’s biggest freeze dryers and sell their garlic and scape powder year-round.

Until I was introduced to the Chef Organics garlic and scape powder through Frank at the AGO by chef Anne Yarymowich, I wouldn’t have gone near powdered garlic with a 10-foot pole, since food snob protocol insists on only the fresh stuff. But the scape powder intrigued me, and by the middle of a Canadian winter, decent fresh garlic is hard to find.

Scapes are the flowering stems from garlic plants that are harvested by hand in June. It’s a specialty crop that only pops up in farmers’ markets for a week or two every year. The scapes have a chive-like oniony note as well as a familiar garlic taste.

When I opened the package of Freeman’s scape powder (which lists exactly one ingredient: scapes), my kitchen was beautifully overwhelmed with a deep garlic aroma. I was hooked, using the powder in all manner of rubs and marinades. It was a while before it dawned on me to try it in a salad dressing. According to Linda Freeman, their garlic has been tested as having a higher amount of allacin than any other in North America. Allacin is the property in garlic that’s thought to provide health benefits, but nearly all of it gets lost when cooked. So, not only is the recipe for salad dressing below delicious, it is apparently very good for you.

1. Combine all ingredients — except the olive oil — in a small mixing bowl.2. Mix ingredients together with a whisk or fork and begin adding the oil slowly to create an emulsion.3. Taste and season, or adjust with more oil or vinegar. Toss with fresh lettuce (any kind will do) just before serving.

Oh, for something green. February is truly the cruellest month for the seasonal locavore. The first shoots of asparagus, wild leeks and fiddleheads are weeks from coming up in Canadian soil. And the Florida citrus season is coming to an end! Fortunately, as we chew through kales and chards from Texas, there are still sweet root vegetables to take warmth and comfort from on a cold winter night.

The turnip is not a terribly well-loved vegetable. It’s often planted as end-of-season animal feed. In Europe, the roots are often discarded in favour of the greens (cimi di rapi). What happens to the tops here is a bit of a mystery, but if you see them at a farmers’ market, grab them and sauté with olive oil and garlic, as you would with rapini or spinach. The roots are not as starchy as a potato, so when they’re roasted they retain a little water and deliver a more vegetal if also slightly tangy and earthy, flavour.

While we may be jealous of the salad eaters in California, who enjoy a more-or-less constant growing season, we can be proud of our root veggies. The frosts and cold weather in our country trigger sugar production in the roots, resulting in a sweeter, more flavourful vegetable. The recipe below is the height of simplicity, and can be simplified even further by skipping the lemon, which is there to act as a seasoner and enhance the flavour marriage between the herbs and roots. Just as easily, a few bits of carrot, parsnip and/or sweet potato will transform it into roasted root vegetables.

1. Remove the turnips’ hard tops and place top down on a cutting board. Peel turnips with a sharp knife from tip to top, then chop into coarse cubes or wedges.2. Place turnip pieces into a large roasting pan and douse liberally with olive oil. Add the lemon rind and juice and deflower the thyme sprigs with your fingers so that the small leaves fall into the pan. Add salt (and pepper or chili flakes, if desired) and mix thoroughly with clean hands.3. Roast turnips for 45 minutes in an oven heated to 400F, turning the pieces once or twice to even browning. Remove and serve.

Kale is the most robust dark leafy green, packed with nutritious wholesomeness and just the thing for post-holiday detox and recuperation. The simplest way to prepare it is to steam it and dress with a little olive oil or butter and maybe a squeeze of lemon. Or, like Swiss chard or spinach, it can be gently sautéed in olive oil, into which a garlic clove has been sliced up and allowed to soften. But its hardiness makes it a bit of a chew, since there’s an awful lot of fibre in kale (what’s good for the body does not always correspond with what’s good on the palate).

My favourite way to eat kale is in soup, where its tough fibres stand up to hot broth. The recipe below is my own creation, but I owe a lot to Portuguese calda verde and Tuscan ribollita for their inspiration. I make it the day after Thanksgiving and on Boxing Day with stock from the bones of turkey, and on cold nights throughout the winter when I crave something hot and nourishing. The sweetness of the poultry stock, sautéed onions and carrots tempers the bitterness of the kale, as does the creaminess of the beans and salty-smokiness of the bacon. The kale gives the soup a deep earthy note of restorative goodness.

Kale, Bacon and Bean Soup(Serves four as a meal)• 2 L stock (preferably homemade from chicken, turkey or vegetable)• 250 g smoked bacon (cut into lardons or matchsticks)• 4 medium-sized onions, roughly chopped• 3 carrots, chopped into pieces that can fit in a spoon• 1 sprig of fresh thyme• 500 mL can of white or romano beans (or dried beans that have been soaked overnight)• 1 head of kale• Parmesan cheese to season (optional)

1. Warm stock in a pot next to a soup pot.2. Fry the bacon in soup pot on medium heat until crisp, remove and set aside. Drain the pot of nearly all of the bacon fat, leaving just enough film to sauté the onions.3. Sauté onions and carrots with thyme on medium to low heat until translucently soft, stirring occasionally so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.4. Meanwhile, drain and rinse the beans and kale, chopping the kale into 3 cm widths or bits that will fit on a spoon when cooked to be limp.5. When onions have “melted,” add beans and kale and bacon, stir and scrape the bottom of the pot and sauté for a few minutes.6. Add stock, stir and scrape the bottom of the pot and gently bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer for five minutes.7. Serve the soup with quality bread and butter or olive oil and grate on fresh Parmesan cheese as desired.

I am a sucker for the ritual of the Christmas stocking and its attendant small gifts of edible things, not least of which, in our house, is a clementine in the toe. But even if you’re not in the stocking set, it’s fun to give and receive little, inexpensive things to eat at this time of year, from chocolates to nuts. They needn’t be luxury items, or particularly exotic. On my wish list every year are the pantry items I always run out of, such as tins of anchovies or jars of capers. Sea salt, chilies or spice combinations in those grinder bottles are also great stuffers — you can’t have too many on hand. Another great gift for foodies is dried porcini mushrooms. If Santa’s feeling flush and wants to spend more than $10, a dried cured sausage from a boutique butcher is a stocking-sized luxury that I might not give into while shopping for chops, but will enjoy immensely and maybe even share over holiday drinks.

As the march of foodie progress continues, there are ever increasing stocking stuffer opportunities in supermarkets. Loblaws launched its PC Black Label gourmet line this fall, which has all kinds of fun stuff, including Spanish Marcona almonds priced to sell at $9.99 for 400 g (a great deal). Sobeys has been working with Toronto cheese guru Andy Shay, creating a cheese program that makes sense for a supermarket while respecting artisanal products and values. One of Shay’s projects is a bloomy rind cheese (think of the outside of a Camembert or slice of Brie) called Inspire. It’s made just for Sobeys by the Domaine Feodal in Berthierville, Que. It comes in a little wooden box for $5.99 for 180 g.

The ultimate foodie stocking stuffer for under $10, though, has to be Taste #5 Umami paste. Made by a genius London “Gastro Therapist,” Laura Santtini, it’s a savoury paste of anchovy, tomato, soy and anything and everything else that’s associated with umami, from porcini mushrooms to Parmesan cheese. It comes in a shiny metallic tube and works brilliantly in any situation where you’d use anchovies. My tube from last year is getting dangerously low.

Combine a healthy squeeze of Taste #5 Umami paste in a small bowl with a good glug of olive oil, a big squeeze of lemon, at least one garlic clove smashed with a mortar and pestle or grated on a fine microplane, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, a tablespoon of Dijon mustard and a few forkfuls of pickled caper buds, season and adjust to taste and you will have a delicious salsa verde ready to perk up that leftover turkey.

The point of boeuf Bourguignon is, of course, the Bourguignon wine. Otherwise it’s just beef stew. Braising meat in red wine is a classic preparation, and there’s no reason why we can’t adopt the practice to our own terroir. In fact, Ontario wines in large measure match the lighter, cool climate pinot noirs of Burgundy and the gamays of its neighbour Beaujolais. I am partial to the latter lately, and find it’s fun to cook using the same wine I’m serving with dinner.

If you have access to reasonably priced, decent mushrooms, add a good handful or two with the onions to the recipe below, as per a classic Bourguignon. I don’t think there’s much point with most domesticated mushrooms, but fresh chanterelles or ceps (porcini) would move this humble beef stew into a luxury category. Of course, beef stew is, in a way, a luxury dish: not because of the cost, but because of the time required to cook it properly. Give yourself a good four hours from the time you begin preparing ingredients to the time you serve. It will take about an hour to chop everything up, brown the meat and sweat the onions, then another three to properly stew. The last three hours may be spent sipping a glass of wine and reading the rest of Saturday’s National Post.

1. Heat a large stewing pot and crisp the cured pork, rendering a good amount of fat so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered and then some.

2. Remove pork and set aside, then use the hot pork fat to brown the beef cubes in batches so that every side has contact with the bottom of the pan.

3. Remove the last batch of beef, turn the heat to medium and gently sweat the onions with the thyme. When the onions begin to turn translucent, add celery and carrots and warm them for a few more minutes.

4. Reintroduce the beef and pork, stirring into the onion mixture, then add the bottle of wine, so that the contents of the pot are submerged. Add more if necessary, or water or stock.

5. Bring to a light boil, then place, sealed with a lid, in a preheated oven at 300F for at least three hours. If your pot is not oven safe, then simmer on the stove at a low heat, with the lid only slightly ajar, for the same amount of time.

One of my favourite things is the email newsletter I receive from farmer David Cohlmeyer at Cookstown Greens. This week, he actually complained that the first frost in the Holland Marsh had been late this year, delaying the “hardening off” of his root vegetables and winter greens. He was referring to the sweetening effect of cold weather on vegetables like carrots. Now that the nights are getting cold, local carrots are at their peak. It’s nice to know that our climate actually gives us an advantage in growing some vegetables. So much attention has been paid to the cuisines of Mediterranean countries and California that it’s easy to forget Canada has a rich and delicious agricultural heritage, too.

The best way to enjoy great vegetables is to cook them simply with a minimum of adornments so that their true flavour can be properly discerned and enjoyed. Botanically speaking, parsley is a cousin to carrots and its fresh, green flavour elevates the root vegetable’s sweet earthiness and balances the creaminess of butter.

Carrots come in all colours, not just orange (it was the Dutch who cultivated them to display their national colour). If you can get heritage breeds, such as the ones Cookstown Greens grows, it’s visually interesting to have a variety of colours on the plate. I like to leave my carrots whole, with a bit of the tops still attached for even more visual diversity. But supermarkets sell perfectly delicious local ones, too. It’s fun to carve the carrots with a knife and fork, as though they were a cut of meat rather than a mere side dish. Cooked carrots should be firm, but tender and easily cut with a butter knife, or even the side of a fork.

1. Peel carrots and leave them whole, or cut them into sticks or slices as you prefer.2. Place them in a large frying or saucepan and fill with cold water to about halfway up the vegetables.3. Add butter (and a pinch of salt, if you like) and bring to a boil.4. Once boiling, cover the pan and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until carrots are tender (this will depend on the size of them, just keep checking with a fork, if you are unsure).5. Remove lid and let water and butter mixture reduce into a glaze that coats the carrots in a buttery shine.6. Remove carrots to a dish or plates, spoon on sauce and garnish liberally with the chopped parsley.

I had lunch cooked for me this week by Michael Stadtlander and his Eigensinn farm crew over an open fire on the site of Foodstock, the Oct. 16 local food and music festival to be held near Shelburne in opposition to a proposed mega quarry nearby. One of the delicious courses was a soup, served in a big cabbage leaf, and featuring sweet, firm Brussels sprouts picked that morning by our farmer host, Bill French. The sprouts were perfectly cooked, which is to say not too much. A lot of anti-Brussels sprouts sentiment comes from the unpleasant sulfurous taste they acquire when boiled for more than about 10 minutes.

Because of their bad rep, Brussels sprouts are remarkably absent from the indexes of most cookbooks. Those authors who do include them tend to tart them up a bit — a parboil followed by an au gratin treatment, or at least a browning up in the oven. All this is fine, but needlessly complicated and moving away from the vegetable’s actual flavour. One way to highlight that flavour, and to avoid overcooking altogether, is to eat them raw. This sounds odd until you remember that Brussels sprouts are just small cabbage heads and could be easily (and deliciously) substituted in a coleslaw.

The recipe below is modified from Stevie Parle’s My Kitchen Real Food from Far and Near (2010). Parle has gone from opening a pop-up restaurant in London a few years ago (now his very successful Dock Kitchen) to becoming a celebrity chef with his own newspaper column. His version has pecorino instead of feta (I happened to have feta in my fridge when I tested) and includes the cheffy step of plunging the chopped sprouts into an ice bath, which I think is particularly unnecessary when the vegetable is at the height of the season.

1. Wash Brussels sprouts and remove any outer leaves that appear discoloured or wilted.2. Slice sprouts as thinly as you are able on the bias, so that you have interesting cross-sections of the
vegetable.3. In a large bowl, separate and toss the strips of sprouts with olive oil and squeeze lemon juice to taste.4. Crumble in feta by hand and season with black pepper.

Growing up in the 1970s, corn was king. Driving up to the family cottage in the Kawarthas meant zig-zagging east-north-east-north on back country roads, and watching the progress of the stalks of corn until the magical moment when the Flynn’s Corners gas station, run by the Flynn family, between Bobcaygeon and Buckhorn, had a stack of just-picked corn next to a bushel of tomatoes and windshield washing fluid. In those days, our technique was basic. Kids shucked, then adults (usually my dad, since his love of the cob was greatest of all) boiled it in a pot, or steamed it in a special basket inserted aluminum pot. The steaming hot yellow cylinders were rolled in butter then aggressively seasoned with salt and pepper. And it was good.

Later, say the mid-’80s, word reached of a new technique that did away with the pot altogether and, intriguingly, involved the barbecue. And since barbecue is always better, this technique was embraced … for a time. One soaked the cobs before shucking, so they didn’t burn, then steamed them in their husks and silk. Once cooked, the cobs had to be husked while still steaming hot. This method was, as they say, not sustainable, and boiling and steaming returned to favour.

Fast-forward about 20 years and one August evening it occurred to me that all that soaking was completely unnecessary. Corn is made up mostly of water — and sugar. Grilling shucked corn right wouldn’t just be OK, it would be delicious as the kernels blister and caramelize. I have not looked back since this revelation.

Make sure you know where your corn comes from and get corn from the closest place you can to ensure it is the most freshly picked. The corn could be seasoned with any combination of butter, EVOO, salt and pepper. But I think it’s perfectly delicious plain.

Grilled corn on the cob

Ingredients:• As many cobs of freshly picked summer corn as needed• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or soft butter1. Heat barbecue until it’s good and hot, or set your oven to broil.2. Lightly brush cobs with butter or olive oil.3. Place cobs on the grill, or under broiler, turning every minute for 5 to 10 minutes,
or when browning is evenly distributed.

They say bacon has been the ruin of more than one vegetarian career. It certainly is hard to find anyone (restrictive diets, notwithstanding) who doesn’t like it just a little bit. But cooking it properly in a pan is a drag. There’s the old warning about doing it naked, which bears no explanation. And at the end there’s a ton of rendered fat to dispose of. (I wonder how many houses still have an old coffee can under the sink, full of the stuff?) So what’s a bacon lover to do? Barbecue it, of course.

A summer tradition in our house is a Saturday lunch of BLTs. Bread, mayonnaise, fresh lettuce from the fields and the best tomatoes we can find to complement rashers of bacon cooked slowly and carefully on the BBQ grill. I think our BLTs are ever popular for two reasons: 1. Like any sandwich, ingredients can be added or switched (cucumbers, mustard, onions, Tabasco); and 2. Bacon strips offer perfect portion control — greedies like me can load up on the pork belly, while more refined palates may use a strip or two to season their tomatoes.

The bacon is from our local butcher — it’s the real thing cured with salt, sugar and not much else, then finished in wood smoke. There’s none of that wateriness and over-saltiness and sweetness you get with supermarket stuff.

There’s no recipe for grilling bacon, per se, only technique. The key to barbecuing strips of bacon is avoiding flare-ups, which generally means keeping the bacon away from direct flame — at least on a propane grill. Most barbecues have at least two sets of jets, which means you can use one set, whether it’s on a side or at the front, to generate heat, while cooking the bacon over the other set that’s been kept off.

Avoiding flare-ups definitely means paying attention and keeping a watchful eye on the bacon at all times: It may be necessary to scoop the bacon right off the grill if a fire erupts, or to turn off the gas for a minute or two to cool things off before lighting it up again. If you use charcoal, then you may be able raise your grill, or move your bricks around. Whatever the equipment, the mantra is low and slow — take your time and enjoy the smoky bacon aroma emanating from your backyard.

Right now, Ontario’s farmers’ markets are full of fresh salad greens and lovely, fragrant green garlic, which is mild enough to be eaten raw. Salad greens bought the morning they are picked will last in the fridge days longer than the gassed-up ones that come from California, which means several days of enjoying the first crisp taste of summer. Rolling Hills Organics, who have a stall at the Riverdale Farmers’ Market, sell a particularly heterogenous mix of lettuces, baby chard leaves and who knows what else. As delicious as the mix is served simply with olive oil and lemon, the crunchy and different tasting bits also work well in that very Californian summer dish: the chopped salad.

I had my first chopped salad on a hot day at a restaurant on Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard a few years ago. It was a mix of salads, cheese and salami along with a few marinated artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes tossed in an Italian-style vinaigrette, redolent of dried oregano. This, I later learned, was a riff on Nancy Silverton’s classic recipe (easily Googled), which, I think, in the tradition of pasta primavera, was put together with whatever was at hand. Chef Scott Vivian, who cooked in Portland, Ore., has imported the chopped salad to Toronto at his restaurant Beast. His salad features homemade Tasso-style ham, artisan feta and a homemade ranch dressing. The point is to take whatever vegetables, cheeses and cured meats you like, chop them all up, toss them with a dressing and apply a fork. In keeping with this philosophy, the following recipe is criminally vague. If you like cheese, or anything else, add more — there’s no magic ratio. It’s just a bunch of stuff chopped up.

Farmers’ Market Chopped SaladIngredients:– 1 small bag of fresh, locally sourced organic greens or a mix of salad leaves, such as Romaine lettuce, radicchio, Belgian endive and arugula– 3 stems of green (a.k.a. young or spring) garlic or 1 small bunch of green onions, or a small red onion– 1 handful of small cherry tomatoes– 200g firm cheese such as feta, old Cheddar or artisanal sheep’s or goat’s milk– 100g of cured meats such as salami, prosciutto or ham– Whatever else may be in your fridge or larder: chili peppers, chick peas, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, pickles, etc.– Extra virgin olive oil– 1⁄2 lemon

1. Chop greens into fine strips.2. Chop green garlic or green onions into fine segments, using mostly the white parts (if using red onion, dice finely).3. Cut tomatoes into quarters.4. Cut cheese into fine cubes.5. Cut cured meat into 3 cm strips.6. Cut any additional ingredients into similarly sized portions, so that many ingredients will fit on in a forkful.7. Combine all in a large bowl, add a good glug of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.8. Mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper to taste.9. Serve on a plate with bread.

I am not much of a gardener. As much as I enjoy the fruits of farmers’ labours, I don’t have much of an appetite for the work, and on a warm spring day, I am more likely to be found mixing drinks than topsoils. But, whatever the colour of my thumb, I manage a few idiot-proof crops every year and the first bit of green to come out of an otherwise barren planter each spring is my little thicket of chives. For whatever reason, the fiercest Canadian winters don’t kill off this hearty alluvial, and the sweet, oniony, herby kick of deep green goodness is as wonderful a sign of warm weather to come as any. I don’t recall exactly how much I spent on the paper packet of chive seeds a few years ago, but I’m sure it was under a dollar and the returns have certainly justified the capital outlay.

Chives, enjoyed in their purest form, demand eggs. But unless you have a line on a friend with a coop, it’s hard to get decent eggs in this province. Eggs and the chickens who lay them are heavily regulated on a quota system. Poultry farmers can keep a few chickens for home and farm-gate use, or they need to buy a quota of tens of thousands, making any sort of artisanal egg production pretty much unviable. That’s why you only see duck eggs on offer at farmers’ markets. Luckily, a few producers, including Don Gingerich near Zurich, Ont., have managed to set themselves up as “grading stations,” which allows them to raise enough organically certified chickens to sell eggs locally and to a few Toronto boutiques such as Olliffe, The Big Carrot and Field Gate Organics. These eggs have a deep yellow yolk, which makes for a delightful scramble, flecked with fragrant bright green chives.

Scrambled Eggs with Chives
Michelin-starred chef and Anglo-French gastro-pioneer Michel Roux loves eggs so much he wrote an entire cookbook around the ingredient (Eggs; Quadrille, 2005), with a chapter called “Scrambled.” His basic technique, which is my point of reference, is to cook them slow and low in butter, with a dash of cream at the end. I prefer a dash of milk at the beginning and a seasoning of good old local cheddar at the end, along with the chives, but I am willing to concede that however your mom made scrambled eggs might be the best method.

Ingredients:– 2 medium- to large-sized eggs per person– 40 g butter– 1 dash (1-2 tbsp) of milk, 1% or higher– 1 handful of fresh chives cut into rounds as thinly as possible with scissors– 1 handful of grated old cheddar or other hard cheese– salt and pepper to season

1. Combine eggs, milk and chives in a bowl and season.2. Melt the butter slowly over low heat.3. Add egg mixture and stir into melted butter, continually turning over the eggs for 2-3 minutes.4. Add cheese just as the eggs are ready to set, continuing to stir for about another minute, so that it incorporates into the eggs.5. Serve eggs on buttered toast just when they set, so they are still moist and creamy.

January is the worst month to file as a food writer: After the holidays, everyone is broke and on a diet. So in fraternity with all the personal trainers and dietitians, who are likely enjoying their best time of the year, this column proposes frozen Canadian wild blueberries as the most appropriate of all ingredients. The wild ones have a famously high count of antioxidants.

Wild blueberries are “farm­ed” across the Maritimes and Northern Quebec in fields that have been burned back. The wild bushes grow low to the ground all summer and then are harvested and rushed to state-of-the-art freezing facilities. The freezers boast their fruit has more nutrients than fresh ones in the summer that spend days being shipped.

My first thought of how to use wild blueberries, in a compote to accompany foie gras, was not in keeping with the new year’s detox theme. My second idea, wild blueberry martinis, was kiboshed by my wife who did not approve of the rigorous recipe development and testing that would be required. (Substitute a handful of the frozen wild blueberries for an olive or lemon twist in a vodka martini for a subtly fruity hint.) So, reckoning that all us detoxees are up early on Sunday morning anyway, I settled on wild blueberry “crêpe-cakes.”

The recipe for crêpe-cake batter below borrows from Nigella Lawson’s pancake recipe in her first cookbook, How To Eat (1998). I call them crêpe-cakes because the batter produces something between a puffy North American pancake and a paper-thin French crêpe. Any pancake recipe will do. Just add the thawed berries to the batter right before you cook.

1. Combine flour, egg, milk and salt and whisk until smooth. Let sit for a good half-hour.
2. Remove frozen wild blueberries and let thaw on a plate at room temperature.
3. Add a knob of butter to a frying pan on medium heat.
4. Add the wild blueberries to the batter, and stir.
5. When the butter has melted completely and starts to sizzle, add portions of the batter to make cakes of the size desired. Cook on one side until firm (2-3 minutes) then flip to finish on the other side (1-2 minutes). Serve with Ontario single-farm maple syrup.

Toronto is a pretty good oyster town with three famous oyster bars (all of which cater): Rodney’s, Starfish and Oyster Boy. At this time of year, the delicacy is also readily available at fishmongers and even fancier grocery stores and supermarkets. To top it off, if you’re willing to shuck your own, they are arguably the most affordable luxury good, if such an oxymoron can be said to exist.

The king of oysters in Hogtown is the Malpeque, named after the bay in Prince Edward Island where they are raised. Oysters from the Atlantic seaboard of North America are terroir-driven: They’re all the same species, Crassostrea virginica, so any difference is derived from whence they came. At Whole Foods this week, I spotted Canadian Atlantic oysters for a dollar each labelled “Blue Point.” This must have been an error unless our Dominion has quietly annexed the North Shore of Long Island, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and I can’t think of a better way to begin a holiday evening than with a few P.E.I. oysters on the half shell and crisp glass of white wine (maybe from Prince Edward County, whose calciferous limestone soil mirrors that of Burgundy). I’ll accompany the mollusks with a sauce mignonette.

My 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines “mignonette” as “coarse ground pepper” and it’s the addition of black peppery hot specks to the sour and onion coolness of the oil-less vinaigrette that makes mignonette sauce the perfect acid foil to an oyster’s salty, metallic earthiness. I had always made mignonette with vinegar until I came across Alice Waters’ recipe from 2007’s The Art of Simple Eating, which is more or less faithfully reproduced below. Waters’ addition of white wine to the every day recipe mellows things, and since there is always a bottle about to be opened to go with the oysters, is an easy enough thing to do. (Fear not, if you intend to accompany your oysters with Champagne, that will do, too!)

1. Chop the shallots as finely as you can.
2. Combine with the wine and vinegar, let sit for 30 minutes or more and grind as much black pepper as you like.
3. Spoon a dash of the sauce on oysters on the half-shell and slurp away.

The sign on the shelf says they’re “baby bok choy,” but the ones at Whole Foods on Avenue Road are bigger than most of the bok choy I’ve seen around town.

Sometimes their bok choy (which is simply marked “PRODUCT OF USA”) comes in leaves tinged with red, though on my last visit, the hue of their Chinese brassica ranged simply from a chartreuse-like light green on the bulbous stem to British racing green on the leaf. While truly small bok choy (sometimes called “pak choy” or “bak” or all manner of other monosyllabic-choy variations, depending on where a cookbook is published) are dainty fun, I prefer the big ones for their fibrous texture.

Bok choy is a leafy green, if not always dark. I think its earthy, almost mineral flavour telegraphs its health benefits. It’s a relief vegetable in this season of heavy stews and sauces. I like it steamed, which keeps its structural integrity, but it’s also wonderfully warming — things cooked in or by water seem to work best on raw, damp days. I tend to match bok choy with light meats such as roast pork or fish.

Seasoned with a light touch of oil, the vegetable works as a kind of warm salad. Asian flavours, like slightly sweet sesame and salty soy, complement the touch of bitterness. But it works just as well in an Italianate version: sautéed in olive oil with sliced garlic (and chili, if you like) and seasoned with a squeeze of lemon.

The recipe below is super simple and is meant to focus on the earthy taste and ever-so-slightly slimy texture of the cabbage. The key is good quality soy sauce (I prefer Japanese tamari) and sesame oil. Try to arrange your bok choy so that the thicker stems get more steam than the more delicate leaves, but don’t worry too much, it’s forgiving.

1. Depending on the size of your steamer, either place washed bok choy upright so that the stem is steamed first, or separate the thick stalks from the more delicate leaves and layer in order of thickness, so the stalks receive more steam than the leaves on top.
2. Steam over a healthy rolling boil for about three to five minutes, erring on the side of fresh and crisp, rather than overdone.
3. Before serving, remove the lid of the steamer, drizzle on the sesame oil, then the soy, and toss roughly right in the steamer — save yourself the trouble of washing another bowl.